My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

To know is to exist; to exist is to be involved, to move about, to see the world with my own eyes.

Writing about people helps us to understand them, and understanding them helps us to accept them as part of ourselves.

I'm where I need to be, so my heart is light. Whatever happens, I know - I mean, I feel - that this is absolutely where I should be and I've lived up to my own expectations.

...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you. You got to fight them for yourself. I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.